Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-11-20
BEAUTY IN THE A t
Or How the Turkish Women Bathe-A
Scene In the Orient.
o. Asnnnrc TaHo-

COaSa tiRople Letter.
Just outside the limits of Constantine
pie, up in the Golden Horn, is the Aga
Hammam, a bath frequented by many
ladies of the highest position, not because
they have no baths of their own, but be-
cause they are sure to meet their friends
there without restriction and have a good
time. 1t has also been q great place for
mothers to take their manageable daugh-
tiers and other mothers to 90 to choose a
bride for their sons, and as wives are not
chosen for their mental but physical beau
ties alone, certainly this is the place to
choose, where beauty is quite unadorned,
and therefore Of this bath we will speak.
The ladies arrive, each one attended by
her own personal servant, and another who
bears u very substantial lunch basket and
q handsome gold-bordered bathing wrap.
The eunuehs remain outside or 20 away
and come back at the hour the bath is
ended, asst occupies several hours.
Plump BEAUTIES IN THE BATH.
First the ladies are Invested Of their
clothing and receive q Grape sheet, which
they drape about them while they sit the
regulation length of time in the first room.
During this time they chat with each 9TH
er, though not very familiarity, and they
keep up the pretense of the drapery
until they reach and pass the next room,
after which the sheet and modesty are
both thrown of, and with their abundant
hair streaming loose and unconfued they
walk erect into the last room as Eve did
about the Garden of Eden, and here they
stretch themselves out upon the marble
slabs while two attendants rub them and
lather them and pour hot water over them
until it seems as if they would be boiled.
Each lady is laid upon a marble slab
which is slightly inclined, and two at
tendants begin their labors, one at the
feet and the other at the head, and the
use of \ sort OF clay called polo, which
raises q thick white lather, which some
times grows several inches thick. The at
tendants use nothing but the soapy clay
and their hands to cleanse their
subjects with, and they rub and
knead and punch until it seems
thsy would reduce flesh to a
pulp, all the while leaving the lather to
accumulate until the bather looks like q
SNOWFALL. Another kind of soap is used
tor the hair, and another again for the
face, but the latter is always left to gather
thick rs the worker rubs and tolls, the
psrSpiratiOn rolling in streams down her
own glistening body. Sometimes these
attendants are white, sometimes black,
and some of the ladies of the harem are as
black as any negro in our W country, as
il is quite 4 common thing for q man to
make a wife of his AbySsinian slave.
These inky ladies wear the Turkish veil as
r~eligiOusly IS do the white wives, AMI in
deed the color line is not drawn closely at
all in the Orient.
The Turkish bath is lighted from the
roof and through the stained glass, and the
colorsd light falls upon the forms laid out
beneath with beautiful effect. A large
fountain with i deep basin stands in the
middle of the room and numberless little
pipes throw off sprays of perfumsd water
above the slabs on which the ladies lay
like animated snow flakes, kicking aud
Squealiug when soap gets into their eyes or
mouths, or when the attendants tickle them
Unexpectedly. A little silver basin stands
at hand, and after the ladies
soaked in soap long enough they
take quite hot water, entire
~ too hot for anybody but o Turkish wo-
ma1, who is used to it, and pour it gently
over them, not d~aShingthe water, but soft
ly emptying it, so that it soon washes off
the lather, leaving the flesh rosy and fresh.
This pouring of water is continued some
times half an hour, and rubbing, rolling
and kneadiDg of the body, after which the
lady is at liberty to plunge into the basin,
if she wishes, among the other laughing
and froljcEiug women, black and white
miugliDg indiscriminately.